The Effing Broker…

2017 has come and already we have one month down. How amazing is that? I thought we were just eating turkey and watching football a couple of weeks back at my brother’s home? Needless to say, 2017 has been a reaaaaal busy time.

Let’s start off by saying, and this is for the benefit of all those who are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur; this is maybe not be the year to do so, in my own humble opinion. There are a lot of uncertainties in the economy and in the political climate. Lots of unknown factors and surprises. But I will also say this: nothing is certain, perhaps precisely because of these same reasons, this is the year to do so! Large and medium size companies get affected by regulation at a much quicker rate than the little guy. What is going to happen to your job next week if new laws come into play out of nowhere? Well I guess that settles that, you may not want to be an entrepreneur, but if you are thinking about it, make sure you have some savings ready at your disposal and that you start planning just in case.

For us, this has been a blessed month. Record sales and record income. We are extremely thankful to have people who have believed in us and more than anything, that we have been able to deliver and meet their expectations. My main concern is servicing our customers well, and that requires taking a step back and accepting our limitations. So, last week, we made a decision that in order to make sure that Customer Service was not an issue, we would have to invest in more personnel or in better technology. At this point in time, we will be going with more personnel. Technology can help you so much, but I feel that it is critical to have a human touch to our growth and not become to distant from our customers. It also gives an opportunity to someone to come and help us out for 10-15 hours a week and for us to start understanding how to make our growth more efficient.

As time passes, we have to consider that growth brings in less attention to our customers if we do not place the necessary resources at their disposal, then we become just another “effing broker” and we certainly do not want that. We should be considered part of their success, if not, we are not adding value and then we become obsolete, just a middleman, and you know what happens then…